


strip down

by qwerty



Series: Exigent [2]
Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Community: kinkme_merlin, Community: picfor1000, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-19
Updated: 2010-08-19
Packaged: 2017-10-11 04:11:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/108238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwerty/pseuds/qwerty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one kills a lord of Camelot without consequence, not even the prince. Follow up to Exigent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	strip down

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [На обозрение](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1594814) by [krasnoe_solnishko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/krasnoe_solnishko/pseuds/krasnoe_solnishko)



> Takes place after [exigent](http://archiveofourown.org/works/108231). References past non-con.  
> Written for the Merlin Kinkmeme 1 Prompt 61/picfor1000 challenge

"Of course he's good," Arthur says at last. "I trained him."

Merlin sucks in a sharp breath, no doubt to say something untrue and inappropriate, here where anyone could walk in and hear them, and he forestalls the useless objections he has already heard too many times with a flippant, "I'm _better_."

"That's not the point," Merlin says, letting his hands fall to his sides, and looks dangerously torn between tears and anger. Neither is an acceptable response.

"That's all that matters now." He hardens his voice, making it clear that he will brook no further dissent. "My sword, now."

*

It's not the challenge or the one who issued it that troubles him. There is a part of him that has been awaiting the gauntlet with dark, blood-hot relish, almost from the moment he noticed Borin's absence from the table. But he knows it became a certainty only when he realised that Merlin was gone as well.

Merlin, and not some other servant. He might have let it pass again. He had done so before.

He feels the weight of judging eyes on him, the knowing gazes, the soft murmurs behind his back that fall away when he turns around.

*

Gaius came to his rooms a day afterwards, and stood silently at the door for far too long, watching him, before he could say, his voice cracked and barely audible, "Sire. I know. _I knew_."

Arthur remembers pausing, hand on Merlin's back.

_"Does Gaius know?" The faint tremors beneath his hand still, and the prickling sensation pulsing against his skin disappears so suddenly it seems he is holding a lifeless statue. "Don't speak. Don't tell me anything," he says, and Merlin lets out a sob that might have been relief. He continues._

Arthur hurls his goblet at the closed door.

*

"... my cousin, and you killed him over a _servant_." For a moment, Arthur thinks Merlin will grab the gauntlet and hurl it back in Locke's face.

Then Morgana is there, shadowed eyes wild and fierce, and stops Merlin with an unerring grip on his wrist that makes both Arthur and Merlin freeze in shock, wondering what she knows. Gwen places herself between Merlin and Locke, shielding him from the knight's contemptuous gaze.

"No one kills a lord without consequence, not even the prince," Morgana says in quiet warning.

Merlin bows his head in surrender. The sight hurts something inside Arthur.

*

Merlin has no sense of propriety, nor self-preservation. He has proven it time and again. Right now he is following Arthur despite suggestions, complaints and outright commands to go bother Gaius or Gwen instead, as though nothing had happened between them. Arthur knows that obdurate expression well enough that he shouldn't have bothered.

Merlin thinks that nothing should change.

Arthur thinks that everything has changed. Everybody knows what happened that night. Everybody knows he killed a lord for tumbling his manservant. They think they know why. They are not wrong.

And sometimes Merlin forgets what everybody knows, and flinches from him.

*

They'd agreed to first blood, and meant it until first blood was drawn. Then one of them slips in the mud and snarls an imprecation, and then neither of them can stop, even after they both lose shields, helms, then swords. Finally, Sir Caradoc pulls him off Locke, cursing and panting, blood and mud dripping from his face and hands and hair. Someone else grabs Locke before the knight can get up to come after him again. Both of them have to be dragged from the field.

He is told, later, that the king is furious. This is nothing new.

*

"Get _out_," he grits out, when he stumbles back to his chambers and finds Merlin waiting there with an ewer of fresh water and towels. He manages to wrench the hauberk over his head and drop it on the floor, then struggles ineffectually with the soaking-wet gambeson until Merlin grabs him and pulls it off.

"You need someone to keep you from falling on your face and drying out on the floor like a dirty rag," Merlin says lightly.

"I don't need your help," he snarls, trying to twist away, and is met with a wet towel to the face.

*

Arthur slaps it away. "You keep acting like I'm some kind of--" He turns, advances on Merlin. "I told you to get out."

Merlin flinches, eyes flashing gold, and Arthur hits an invisible wall, but only for the barest moment. "You don't frighten me," he says, and the thread holding Arthur's temper in check snaps.

"Tell me you wanted me to hurt you. I'll do it again. Do you understand?"

"I didn't--" Merlin stops himself and glares at him. "You didn't scare me when I thought you could send me to the stake. I never took you for a fool."

*

"No, that's more your province," he snaps back automatically, grabbing a towel to scrub at the mud streaks extending down to his chest.

"You're really good at being a prat," Merlin says, and looks as though he might be laughing at him. He tugs at the knotted laces of Arthur's breeches, and stills.

Arthur knows what he is looking at. He's been hard since the brawl with Locke, and given up hoping that it will go away on its own long enough that he'd forgotten about it. He exhales. "Ignore it. Carry on."

Merlin squeezes his shoulder, waits. "Do it."

*

He wants to fuck something. He wants to hit someone, and keep hitting, until the eyes stop watching and judging. He wants to kill a dead man again. He wants to shape his hands over livid marks on white skin and hold them there until -- he wants -- nothing. He takes himself in hand, concentrates on not thinking, and brings himself off in a rough, stuttering rhythm he can't forget. Merlin keeps his hand on Arthur's back until he finishes, a silent, warm presence he can feel all down his side. "Wash it away," he says. After a moment, Merlin does.

**Image prompt**   



End file.
